Aspire Rx owner Hetal Chudasama. (Photo by Mike Lyons/West Philly Local)

A few months ago we wrote about the new independently owned pharmacy that opened right across the street from CVS on Locust Street near 43rd. The store’s location raised some eyebrows. So this week we decided to check back in to see how things were going at Aspire.

Aspire’s owner, Hetal Chudasama, knows better than most the risk she took in locating across the street from the big box behemoth. She managed CVS’s pharmacy for a few years and began working there in 2002.

“I’ve taken all of the things I’ve seen over the years and made them better,” Chudasama said.

While the pharmacists at CVS focus on quantity, a sort of churn-and-burn style of filling prescriptions, Chudasama slows the process of getting medication down to make sure patients get what they need.

“My number one thing is to talk to the patient and give them my time,” she said.

Aspire is one of a growing number of independently owned pharmacies popping up in small towns and big cities across the country. While in the 1970s and 1980s most pharmacies in the country were independently owned, the number started to nose-dive in the 1990s as big-big box stores like CVS and Rite Aid began to dominate the market. Even Wal-Mart and Target got into the pharmacy game as a way to get customers into the stores.

But independents are making a comeback, according to the National Community Pharmacists Association. Reasons for the increase include a tough job market for retail pharmacists leading to more willing to take a chance on their own business.

Example of a blister pack. (Photo courtesy of Aspire Rx)

Chudasama offers the kind of personalized service that most independents do – but places like CVS don’t. Aspire delivers prescriptions for free. Chudasama also assembles medication in specially designed blister packages that group multiple medications by days of the week, making it much less likely that patients will not take all of their required pills. She also works closely with physicians. These are things that CVS pharmacists simply don’t have time to do, she says.

“I went to school to be a pharmacist, not to just stand and count pills,” said Chudasama.

Switching prescriptions from a big box pharmacy to Aspire is as easy as making a phone call. And if you stop by on a hot day, chances are good that you can get a cup of cold lemonade. You’ll have to pay for that at CVS.

– Mike Lyons

Rendering of the new Baltimore Avenue Pedestrian Plaza provided by University City District.

Many folks are probably wondering what is going on at 48^th Street and Baltimore Avenue, so here’s what we learned: The three bumpouts now hugging the curbs of the intersection’s south side were the first phase in a new University City District project that’ll transform the glut asphalt into a pedestrianized plaza.

The second phase, which should start this week, will have stone barriers and terra-cotta style planters housing budding perennials installed around the bumpouts’ outer edges, serving as protection from oncoming traffic. A new crosswalk directly connecting the Gold Standard Café and the Calvary Center was also painted.

Once completed this spring, the plaza will shrink the vast, daunting gap of the 48^th Street and Baltimore Avenue juncture, shortening crossing distances, improving pedestrian safety, slowing vehicle speed, and “better [knitting] together Baltimore Avenue,” UCD’s Seth Budick told West Philly Local. The organization partnered with the Mayor’s Office of Transportation and Utilities and worked with the West Philly community to develop design plans, he said.

The local plaza development is one of two implemented by UCD, which received two grants under the City of Philadelphia’s recently-announced Pedestrian Plaza program that aims to convert excess street surface into usable pedestrian spaces. The first plaza, named Woodland Green, was finished last fall at 42^nd Street and Woodland Ave.

– Annamarya Scaccia

This is an unfortunate incident that happened to a neighbor over Memorial Day weekend and a reminder to all neighbors to make sure you don’t leave any valuables, both money-wise and of personal value, on your porches. A neighbor, Mike, who lives on the 4400 block of Larchwood Ave reports that his camera bag with photo and video cameras and other equipment (all about $1200 worth) was stolen off his porch after he left it there by accident. Mike left his bag and some other items on their porch on Sunday night after he and his wife returned home from introducing their newborn baby to family. Photos and videos of the meeting were on the cameras.

The camera bag was stolen between 11:30 p.m. on Sunday and 3 p.m. on Monday when Mike discovered that it was missing: “I accidentally left some items on our front porch… Although most items were still there, someone stole my camera bag, complete with my Pentax K10D camera, Tamron AF18-250mm lens, external flash unit, and Kodak zi8 small handheld video camera. Also, miscellaneous batteries, 2 memory cards, a lens filter.”

Mike says that he filed a report with the police. “As you can imagine, we are upset about losing around $1200 worth of equipment. But we can’t replace photos and videos of our family meeting our baby,” he writes.

Update: The stolen cameras and lens are not very common, Mike adds, so if anyone sees them at a local resale, pawn or flea market, please call him 610-389-0985.

This Wednesday, May 29, Spiral Q Puppet Theatre, Public Citizens for Children and Youth (PCCY), and a group of students from Powel Elementary are teaming up to stage an “artful action” in front of City Hall and in the City Hall Caucus Room to protest the proposed school budget cuts. Specifically, this event addresses the need for art instruction in the schools that would be eliminated if the proposed budget comes into effect. The students will be there from 9 to 11 a.m. and are inviting other kids to join them.

Spiral Q and PCCY, which helped arrange the event, will transport several of the “Terracotta Warriors” that children made this semester as part of this year’s school-wide thematic unit on China (students choose a different country/culture each year). Each warrior is the size of a child and was decorated by a small group of children.

Along with the visuals, the students and parents will deliver petitions to Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, who is the chair of the Education Committee.

Powel invites other schools and kids to join in tomorrow’s action as it will be “a pretty cool sight to see” and also to bring “drums, signs, gongs, [and] enthusiasm!”

For more information and the tentative schedule please visit the event’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/139407546249353/

The unveiling party for “Hollaback: Red, Yellow, Blue,” a new comic book that takes on the street harassment of women – the catcalls, staring, kissing sounds, hissing, etc. –  is tonight at Locust Moon Comics (34 S. 40th St.) beginning at 7 p.m.

Artist Erin Filson has teamed up with the anti-street harassment organization HollabackPhilly to create the comic, which follows the experiences of two women who are harassed and a man who figures out productive ways to intervene. Filson and the Hollaback team raised more than $8,000 through crowdfunding (link includes a video about the comic) to pay for the book. The first print run is about 2,000 copies.

Here is a Facebook page for tonight’s event.

The cover of Hollaback: Red, Yellow, Blue.

Police are looking for four men who robbed Forman Mills, a clothing department store at 48th and Market, this afternoon. The robbery happened shortly after 4 p.m. Four armed men in masks came in the store and robbed it of about $500, according to police. No one was hurt. The robbers fled on foot through the parking lot. We’ll post more information when it’s available.